


The TFA Pokemon AU Nobody Asked For

by the_actual_letter_n



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Minor ones, Original Character(s), Pokemon AU, jedistormpilot eventually because im trash, plot at some point probably, will tag as it goes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 17:17:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6338056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_actual_letter_n/pseuds/the_actual_letter_n
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Team Rocket runaway, a Flying-type Gym Leader and a scavenger with a gift. <br/>Professor Skywalker discovered something before he disappeared, and the Pokemon League is not the only group who wants to make use of it. Rey is burdened with a destiny she doesn't quite understand and to fulfill it, she has to become the very best...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The TFA Pokemon AU Nobody Asked For

The Pokemon Lab in Niima Town had stood abandoned for a very long time.

Its walls, once white and climbing proudly to the sky under a delicate web of ornamentation were now as bare as the desert to the east - the copper shapes and statues had long since been stripped down to naked stone by scavengers. Niima wasn't a good place to be beautiful.

Once, the town had been a thriving centre of science, thanks to the Lab and the Pokemon Professor who owned it. But now, the man was gone. There were rumors of why he had left, there were rumors he'd been kidnapped or killed. The community he had built in Niima had followed suit - people left, one by one, with their families and Pokemon. Nobody wanted to live in the shadow of the empty Lab, reminded of the beloved Professor's disappearance.

Few stayed behind, but the morbid story attracted all the wrong people to the once peaceful town. Over the years, it grew into a place to hide in - scavengers came from the desert, gangs formed among outlaws and communities among runaways. Not many wanted to live in the town, and those who did liked it that way.

There were good people in Niima. But the three men approaching the Lab weren't them.

They didn't bother to wait for sundown - life in the town didn't trouble itself to stop for the fickle desert nighttime. Armed with long metal pipes and a Pokeball each, they circled the Lab building and crept to the only non-barred window, barely visible in the shadow of the sloping roof. It had been covered with a grey slab until recently and nobody had tried to get through it yet, as far as they knew - for one, it was too high to reach and for two...

Well, nobody really knew what was inside.

There were tales of a treasure, of course, but very few believed them. The Professor was a scientist, after all - he had most likely collected only data. But there were still many things in a Pokemon Lab that could be worth much more effort than getting inside would be, even through a window under the roof.

The leader of the three scavengers knew that. He made a name for himself in Niima by being treacherously intelligent, but very few were aware that he was a scientist as well. With a doctorate from Kanto and an ugly story to account for its losing, he knew exactly how much even a broken hatching terrarium could get them on the black market. And that was only the tip of the iceberg of technology they could find inside that building.

The leader nodded at one of his companions - a pale man with a shock of yellow hair and three rings in his lower lip - and threw up his Pokeball, releasing an Abra in a streak of red light. The Pokemon didn't make a sound, well aware of its importance and immediately started focusing its psychic energy. The air around it wobbled and went thick with a sharp, sulfur smell.

The blond man approached the wall and glanced at the Abra. The Pokemon's eyes twitched as it raised a clawed hand and let out a low, droning sound, like vibrating steel. The man braced himself and slowly rose into the air, closing in inch by inch to the open window. He reached out, instinctively feeling the wall for support, but he went up steadily, held by the Abra's psychic powers.

He finally grabbed the edge of the window, then its sides and then he found a foothold on the windowsill and slid his legs into the opening. He raised his thumb at the Abra and the psychic hold disappeared, leaving him balancing in the window, bracing an elbow against its corner.

The leader waved at him impatiently from the ground. The blond man nodded and unraveled a length of rope he had secured to his belt. He first threw it inside the building and then attached it about halfway through to the bare hinge at the top of the window. Then he threw the rest of the rope to his companions and, after giving them another thumbs-up, began a careful descent into the cold darkness of the Lab.

He landed carefully on the cracked tiles, making no sound. He threw around a glance, looking for a place to secure the rope - he could see maybe an arm's length ahead, but he could make out the stocky shapes of tables and chairs as well as the walls of massive cabinets towering above him. He picked a long, heavy-looking desk with a huge screen attached to its side and pulled it closer to the window. He ran a hand along its clean surface and found a hole through which a bunch of cables poured down to the floor, unattached to anything. He fed the rope through it and wrapped it around the desk and then the leg, just in time for it to tense up and the sound of boots on stone to come from outside of the window.

Within five minutes, they were all inside the Lab. The leader decided to leave the rope attached in case they couldn't get the front door to open - they had left two Pokemon on a lookout outside of the building, so they were covered in case of any surprise company. He didn't like that solution, but the last member of his team, the red-headed, wiry escape expert insisted on leaving the rope. So the leader didn't argue.

They advanced through the room, cutting the darkness with streaks of warm light from their torches, revealing sharp corners of yet more and more cabinets, their shelves empty and half collapsed. A glint of metal caught the leader's eye and he turned towards it, noticing a handle of a worn-down looking door. He nodded to his companions and approached it, flanked on both sides, pipe low in his free arm. Metal glinted again, but this time the blond man turned too, looking up.

That wasn't a door handle.

The leader froze and signaled the rest to do the same. His eyes darted across the room, making out hazy shapes in the clear darkness: rectangular cabinets. Chairs on the floor, cupboards and broken glass cases on the walls. A stack of books on a fallen shelf. A screen on a desk. Locks of cables hanging from the ceiling. A ventilation pipe, high above.

Open.

He spun around, but the door behind him banged open, the edge slammed into his face and knocked him back into a cabinet. The blond man cried out and swung, but a metal staff burst out from behind the door and blocked his hit right before a flurry of tan fabric and dark hair threw itself at him and kicked his legs from underneath him. It turned to the last of the three, but he stepped back, hands up, pipe clattering on the floor. The tip of the staff stopped right in front of his face.

The young woman holding it froze in place and glared.

'Who the hell are you?' she growled.

'I could be asking the same,' the leader said, wiping the blood from his mangled lip. 'Arceus, woman, you broke my nose. What the hell. Okay.' He looked up at her and she met his gaze. 'We've got business here. Piss off, let us work.'

'I was here first,' she shot back.

'Uh, meowthshit,' the wiry man called and jerked back when she thrust the staff further. 'We took the one way in, had eyes on in. Y'all ain't come in here any time recent.'

'I have my ways,' the girl said, taking a step forward and forcing him to back up. 'This place is mine. I claimed it.'

'You and whose lawyer?' The leader raised an eyebrow. 'Listen, lady, there's plenty of loot here, first found, first served. Stop waving this thing and get to work if you want your share.'

He reached for the door, but the staff materialized itself in front of his face, close enough to smell the metal.

'It's mine,' the girl said. 'Get out.'

The leader slowly turned his gaze to her and then looked her up and down. She was short but obviously muscular, her grip on the staff was firm and she clearly knew how to use it. But also, she was alone. And he couldn't see any Pokeballs.

'Okay,' he decided. 'Make me.'

He reached to his belt at the same time as his companions did and three streaks of red shot out towards the girl, releasing a Flygon and two Cacturnes, which immediately took places around her. She started, but kept her staff high, aiming at the leader's throat.

'Piss off, lady,' he repeated. 'I'm a good guy, I'll let you keep whatever you find, no take-backs. You don't have Pokemon, you can't do jack shit to us. Let's just do this the nice way.'

The girl stared him down, jaw set and hands closed on her weapon. He could feel her calculating her chances against three people and three Pokemon, her eyes jumped from him to his Flygon and then, suddenly, up. His look followed and he caught yet another glint in the darkness - something flashed across a gap between two cabinets and then rustled down to the floor. The leader nodded at his blond companion, to which the man crept off to the side, followed by his Cacturne.

The girl's attention snapped back to the leader and she raised her staff a little higher. There was an almost unhealthy determination in her eyes, something burning hot enough to make her seriously consider taking a fight this uneven. The leader couldn't help but feel a pang of bitterness; this was supposed to be a scavenging trip. He wasn't planning on killing anyone today.

But it looked like that girl couldn't be intimidated.

There was a sudden piercing noise, like a nail on stone and the girl's head snapped towards it - the blond man emerged from the darkness, Pokemon at his side and a shrieking, frantic ball of rocky hide and stubby claws thrashing wildly in his grip. The leader grimaced and raised a hand to his ear.

'Arceus, what is this? This yours?' he turned to the girl.

'No,' she said, staring at it with wide eyes.

'I think it's a Sandshrew,' the blond man said, holding the Pokemon at arm's length to avoid its desperate clawing. 'Not our problem though. Our problem is the five-odd trucks I just heard pulling up somewhere close enough to be heard pulling up.'

'Trucks?' The leader frowned. 'We care why?'

'Because nobody local drives a truck and tourism isn't exactly flourishing, which makes me think trouble. And I also heard people, in enough numbers to make me think Team Rocket.'

The leader bit down on his lip and glanced at the girl, still aiming her staff at his throat. He looked around the empty cabinets and broken cases and then his hand twitched and he waved a Pokeball, calling his Flygon back.

'We're bouncing,' he announced and turned on his heel to walk away.

'Hey!' the girl called, through the sound of the other Pokemon being returned. 'Where are you going?'

'Away,' the leader replied, gesturing to his companions. 'I mess with many people, but I don't mess with Team Rocket. You're welcome to use our rope, but piss off when we're out. There's jack shit else to hustle in Niima, so they have to be here for the lab.'

'I'm staying here,' she said, lowering her staff.

The leader stopped for a second, but then he shook his head and threw her a salute that was only half-mocking.

'Good luck, lady.'

And then they were gone in the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> This is like the equivalent of a mystifying first scene in a movie, except it's not a movie but a fanfic and it doesn't really work as well as it should. Bear with me.
> 
> Chapter title from the song "Kavaler" by Kaizers Orchestra.


End file.
